Luke's Real Birthday

Luke's actual birthday was on Sunday.  This is a tricky day for birthdays at our house, but I think he was spoiled good enough :).  He woke up to his streamers, sign, and Nate did a cool blockade in front of his bedroom door with the crepe paper.  He had to bust through it in the morning :).  That was something new!  He got all dressed for church and we let him open one present.  He chose to open the one from Bradley (the only one that was wrapped :) ), and he got his beloved silly putty :).  This was the one thing he told me he wanted for his birthday.  Funny kid.  

After church he got to open 3 more presents from Kelly, Nate and I, the family, and then I surprised him with my "gift", a game of Monopoly.  Not the game, just me playing the game with him :).  He was happy about that.  We had a lot of fun.  

What a goofball!!  Demonstrating how much fun the box can be!

Testing out the new game before Daddy had to go to work.

After that we went up to Grandpa Hatch's house for his Superbowl party!  Lots of goodies, lots of ipad fun, and lots of goodies!  I must say that I do not want to watch the Superbowl ever again.  There is far too much smut for how little I like the actual game.  I especially won't be watching it with my kids again anytime soon.  I'm glad they were all distracted, but even at the end, on the way home, Bradley informed me that we were not keeping the Sabbath day Holy and he was unable to feel the Spirit.  I failed as a Mom that night.  I will not make the same mistake again.
Grandpa and Steve both spoiled Lukey with gifts, two new wii games!  Wahoo!!  Luke was thrilled :).  I love watching him enjoy HIS day.

When we got home, we realized that Luke had not had a chance to blow out candles yet, with the different cakes and parties, none of them were fire friendly.  So we put some candles in a piece of bread and he blew them out :). Ya gotta blow out candles!

Luke's Birthday Parties

Friday was a pretty big day for us.  Nate and I spent the morning getting things ready for Luke's birthday party and then went and did a No-Missing-Work Party for Kelly's class real quick in the middle of it before hurrying back to get things going.  Luke requested an Angry Birds party, so we got the idea to do a lifesize version of Angry Birds.  We needed lots of space, so I reserved the church.  Luke was so cute when planning things.  He was very particular about who he was going to invite, and then a couple days later had 2 more people he wanted to invite.  One was a new friend he had just become friends with and the other was a kid who "doesn't ever get invited to birthday parties".  I thought it was so sweet of him to invite someone because of that.  He is such a sweet boy and such a good friend at school.  I love that about him!  He was kind of picky about what we were going to do at his party.  I had a hard time coming up with ideas he agreed with.  He thought of doing a bowling game, and then pinterest helped us with the pinata replacement.  (I'm so sick of pinatas!  I needed a different way to pack the kids' bags with candy that would be just as fun)  We decided on a dart game with balloons filled with candy.  A little dangerous, but it ended up being a lot of fun!  And nobody even came close to getting hurt.  Luke was totally dying to play it the whole time :).  And when our Angry Birds game wasn't all that we'd dreamt it would be, the balloons were a great recovery.  I'm really sad I didn't take more pictures!  The party was a crazy blur, and I really didn't have a free second with holding Jack, fixing the cake, and just plain running around like a crazy person.  I was slightly bummed that I'd not had more time for the cake, the balloon idea I'd had, and a few other things, but overall, the party was a success.  I knew it had been when I heard that one of the boys ran out to his Mom's car saying, "That was an AWESOME PARTY!  We got to use SHARP DARTS!!!"  hahaha.... yeah.  It was awesome :).  I love how easy little boys are to please.  They make these parties fun.  I know Luke had fun and that was most important :).

I loved watching him open his presents!  He was so good at showing his appreciation even for the gifts that weren't necessarily his favorite.  Very polite!

Luke's best friend Carter knows him too well!  Got him a stuffed Angry Bird :).  So cool.

After his friend party, we hurried home to unload boxes and balloons and gifts, and headed off to Carl's Jr. for his family party.  This was an interesting party.  We were so grateful to have Sarah and her boys, Nate's parents and Mom and Simon there.  It was super laid back and we didn't even bring our own ice cream and cake as planned since so few people were coming, we figured the ice cream sandwiches they sell there would be perfect, and saved myself the trouble.  I thought it was a lot of fun to sit and talk.  Everyone seemed to have a good enough time.  Luke informed me at the last minute (like, as I was telling him it was time to go, after at least an hour and a half of playing) that he doesn't like that playground.  Funny boy.  We've been having a lot of talks lately about how we have to choose to be happy and enjoy things because we want to.  It's not taking :).  But I think he had enough fun.  He just gets bored and all the fun he just had goes out the window.  He's normal.  And our big day was over.

Bradley's Bobcat

 Bradley's Pack Meeting was on January 29th.  This one was a big deal!  He got to be the announcer for the Pledge.  That was pretty cool!

He was presented with his Bowling Belt Loop.

AAAAAAND!  He received his first rank, his BOBCAT!!!!  Wahoo!!!  We were SO proud of him!!  

 He pinned on my very first scout pin, SO exciting!  I have been dreaming up ways to display my pins ever since.  If anyone has any good ideas, let me know, but so far, I think I'm going to make a ribbon sash with each boy's name (I'm planning on all four of them giving me lots :) ).  I love it!

Then they did a few Arrow of Light advancements, which I could totally see the wheels in Bradley's head turning... thinking about when he gets his.  

And then they did Cookie Face :).  

My little Bradley looks so grown up!

Bradley has been SO into Scouts already!  He went over to the newest Scout, his friend Sam's house the other day to help him with his acheivements to earn his Bobcat.  What a cool kid!!  I can tell this is right up his alley, he will go far!

We went out for ice cream to celebrate!  YAY BRADLEY!!

Journaling

- Thursday I got to go to lunch with my cousins.  Alicia was visiting from AZ and Maija was close enough to brave the storm.  I was just crazy enough and desperate enough to see them, that I went out in the crazy FREEZING RAIN, and drove down to SL.  They're totally worth risking my life apparently :).  It was a really nice time.  1-24-13

- We had an interesting Saturday.  Things just kept happening and I felt like I sat and watched the whirlwind.  Kelly and Charity had play practice, we went grocery shopping with everyone, grabbed a present for Bradley's "friend" (I use the quotes because the crazy little animal bit my son on the way to the W-AIR-house and it was such a bite that it left marks on his arm for hours!  I'm still ticked about it), took Bradley, all the while trying to get some laundry done because it was going to be my new laundry day, but that of course didn't last.  Then Nate went to work and when Bradley came home, we all headed out for Wreck-It Ralph!  That was a lot of fun.  The kids and I are mastering the art of the Movie Theater with a very outnumbered Adult.  It's actually a lot of fun!  I could do without the screaming about why we don't have MORE popcorn, from Noah, when we've already had a large and refill.  My favorite part was when Kelly said that she didn't really want to see hte movie, but she wanted to go (AND pay her own way, I might add- yes, I was mean and made them pay for their own tickets) just so that she could see Lukey watch it!  How cute is that!  She knew he would love it and wanted to watch him giggle and enjoy all the parts that she knew he would :).  SO fun.  This was a reward for Lukey, for sleeping in his own bed for 2 weeks.  It's been a wonderful two weeks.  He was kind enough to let everyone else come, but yes, that is why they had to pay their own way.  I had made the mistake of inviting everyone before checking with Luke though, so he was disappointed that we weren't going as a date.  (awww!!)  So we will be going on a date soon :).  We loved the movie, (again, for most of us).  Cute cute show.  1-26-13

- Bradley and Erika were not feeling well this morning.  And frankly, Jack and I weren't feeling well either, so we all stayed home from church.  This is a huge deal for me.  I HATE missing church.  I'm sure I've said this a million times.  I thought it was an okay day though, minus all the bickering.  I really think there are some lingering bugs here and I'm hoping it's the end, not the beginning.  Nate was good to take the rest of the kids to church and then go to work at 2:00.  We don't love that part of his schedule so far.  It stinks to say good bye to him Sunday afternoons.  We'll see how long it takes us to adjust to this new schedule.  1-27-13

Jumping Jacks

I just love this little guy... he is SO SWEET!!!

This was his first and only (so far) time eating solid foods.  A little rice cereal.  He didn't love it and I wasn't convinced that he was ready.  But we decided to get pictures anyway :)

He's like, "Hey, Mom, ya know that stuff you were eating the other day that smelled kind of chocolatey and melted all over your hands... do you have any of THAT that I can try??  I think I would like that better."  

He looked so cute sitting up like a big boy on the couch.  Kelly got some cute shots of him.

We're finding that the hard thing about photographing Jack is that he while he is easy to get to smile, he uses his whole body to smile, and ends up wiggling and squirming around whenever he does!  It's difficult to get one that's not blurry or with his head looking up.  Kelly did pretty good on these ones though.

Baby Jack is such a BIG BOY!!  He's growing like a weed.  I feel the need to make a post to mark his 5th month.  He's been changing a lot!  He's so alert, reaching for things, holding toys, and of course putting everything in his mouth :).  He likes being in the walker, that's been a fun new thing for him.  He's been getting into the little rainbow toy thing, that he lays under, that's been fun too.  Both of which are pink... he doesn't seem to be bothered by the fact that his toys are girly :).  He is still just so sweet.  Everyone says that when they see him too.  Either that or they talk about how chubby he is :).  Which he is!  He slept 9 hours straight the other night and when he woke up he was too small for his 3-6 month clothes :).  Might be a growth spurt.  I love to sit and stare at him.  He lets me which is adorable, but he'll coo and just look at me and grab my face and hair and stuff.  It's so sweet.  He doesn't need to be constantly entertained still, but he does like to be held MOST of the time :).  He does make a few exceptions and for the most part, he doesn't have to :).  Plenty of people happy to hold him.  I'm convinced Heavenly Father did that on purpose :).  I think that if he had enough opportunities to spend time on the floor, he would learn how to crawl. His legs move nonstop.  If his legs aren't moving his arms are :).  I do need a vacuum though, before he can do that.  Anyway.  We love him!  He's an angel.